The pace of transformation of Catalist-listed Meta Health continues to be fast.
Since then, the renamed Meta Health has made moves to become a digital healthcare company, the latest being a venture into building virtual medical cities. As the first to bring such a concept to Singapore, Meta Health has entered into a strategic partnership between its fully-owned healthcare platform company, 5Digital, and medical technology company, Aimedis B.V. |
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Aimedis specialises in building virtual medical cities and developing an ecosystem of accredited healthcare professionals to operate in them.
Aimedis was founded in 2017 by two doctors, Dr Michael J. Kaldasch and Dr Ben J.O. El Idrissi, who both trained in Germany and built a block chain based health record platform with robust cyber security features.
It recently developed Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in the healthcare space together with the Virtual Medical City platform.
"The partnership will bring together the telemedicine service and medical IoT platform which 5Digital has implemented in Singapore and Indonesia, to be embedded within the Virtual Medical City, which includes the block chain storage of medical data uploaded from these devices and consultation data from 5Digital," said Meta Health.
The virtual medical city will be linked to virtual medical cities in Europe and beyond, where accredited specialists can provide second opinions.
Aimedis receives a royalty on the NFTs and spaces created together with 5Digital in the Virtual Medical Cities.
The partnership gives 5Digital an option to invest up to 25% of the next equity fund raising exercise by Aimedis.
Large technology companies, such as Facebook, are currently spending significant sums of funds in building the metaverse.
Use cases for Microsoft HoloLens and Facebook Oculus have already gone beyond gaming, into other industries, including medical training.
Co-Founder and CEO of Aimedis, Dr Michael J. Kaldasch, commented: “We have seen increased traction in the metaverse and saw the opportunity for communities to have localised health and wellness spaces. With our unique mix of a technology and medical team in this space, we have taken the lead in developing the medical spaces for both the web and virtual reality environments.
"We saw a lot of synergy and dynamism in the 5Digital team, with the integrated healthcare data approach between telemedicine, medical IoT and social commerce. We look forward to partnering and building a regulated and secure environment for access to quality healthcare across Asia.”
Dr Vas Metupalle, Chief Medical Officer, 5Digital.Chief Medical Officer of 5Digital, Dr Vas Metupalle, noted an increased adoption of digital means for healthcare access during the Covid pandemic.
Still, the medical travel industry has experienced a set back during this time.
"Singapore could regain its status as the key medical hub with its various specialist doctors who have global expertise. We have the vision to bring hospital expertise to homecare within Singapore and with data from Cedar Sinai Medical Center in the US and others, we see immediate use cases in neuro rehabilitation1, which have been validated in Europe2, and its contents can be localised.
"This platform will also be a perfect addition within the smart cities planned for Indonesia with 5G network rollout and digital focus on services. We look forward to building a regional network for these virtual medical spaces to bridge the gap in access to specialist care.
"We have made the preparations for Indonesia on domestic medical travel and have been working through our investee company within the Group, PT Gaido Digital Medika, on smart hospital platform and an expansion with an office in Bali, which is the venue for G20 Summit this year and proposed hub for Indonesia’s domestic medical travel3.”
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/health/virtual-reality-therapy.html
2. https://vr4rehab.org/publications/
3. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3161636/will-indonesias-bali-beable-rival-singapore-malaysia-thailand
Read also the subsequent queries raised by SGX, and Meta Health's responses here.
